I've just read your long, apparently agonized posting about Haitian labor and outside influence. As always, your concerns are well placed, but in this piece it seems to me you confuse issues terribly. Your zeal to avoid undue or unwanted outside influence on Haiti has led you to suppose that the outside meddling is coming mostly from those who OPPOSE the exploitation of Haitian labor rather than from those who are doing and facillitating it. Consider these points:

1. In 1991, Aristide and his then Prime Minister proposed raising the minimum wage. The US spent $26 million to defeat that move in the legislature. Today the US and the various agencies it controls still oppose any rise in wages.

2. For every factory job that opens up in Port-au-Prince, it is estimated that 10 persons move from the countryside looking for that job, each of the10 having family and others to support. Hence, under present conditions factory employment is worsening the lot of 90% of the Haitian poor, because it puts capital in the wrong place. Many Haitians know this, including Aristide and Preval, but they can do nothing about it while being leaned on by the US.

3. None of the voices that I've heard, including those of labor in Haiti and the US, wants Disney and other manufacturers to LEAVE Haiti. They just want them to pay a decent wage. The National Labor Committee, which has done most to expose the labor conditions, is conducting a campaign against Disney's labor practices world wide, to try to block any move they might make just to move their jobs around without improving anything for workers.

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